Chess - The Scotsman 22/03/2012

BULGARIA has a rich chess tradition: Veselin Topalov is a former FIDE World Champion and the country has organising many major tournaments. The anti-draw “Sofia rule” in chess is also named after the Bulgarian capital, from where it originated in 2005.

Sofia has held many prestigious events, such as the elite series of MTel Masters, a Candidates match, and a World Championship match. Bulgaria’s second biggest city, Plovdiv, also gets in on the act by staging the European Team Championship, the European Individual Championship, and the European Club Cup.

Plovdiv got a vote of confidence from the European Chess Union to stage yet another European Individual Championship – with 350 players, 15 rated above 2700 – that got under way earlier this week and will run until 1 April.

The top seed is the young man-of-the-moment Fabiano Caruana, 19, who arrived in Plovdiv fresh from his recent victory at the Reykjavik Open. The rapidly rising Italian elite star will be looking to win the European title to move further up the world rankings, where he’s currently No 6 on the daily live ratings.

Scotland is represented by FM Alan Tate who, with three IM norms to his name, will be looking to boost his Elo rating to 2400 so he can final claim his IM title. Tate got off to the best possible start by having the better of an opening round draw with the top Dutch star, Jan Smeets.

J Smeets - A Tate

European Individual Ch., (1)

Caro-Kann Defence, Advance variation

1 e4 c6 2 d4 d5 3 e5 Bf5 4 c3 e6 5 Be3 Ne7 6 Nd2 Bg6 7 f4 Nf5 8 Bf2 h5 9 g3 Nd7 10 Ngf3 Be7 11 Be2 Qb6 12 Qb3 a5 13 Qxb6 Nxb6 14 a4 Nd7 15 Kf1 f6 16 h3 0–0–0 17 Kg2 Nh6 18 Rae1 Rde8 19 Nh2 fxe5 20 fxe5 Ref8 21 Ref1 Nf7 22 g4 Ng5 23 Be3 h4 24 Nhf3 Nxf3 25 Nxf3 Be4 26 Kh2 g5! 27 Nxg5 Bxh1 28 Kxh1 Rxf1+ 29 Bxf1 Nf8 30 Kg2 Kd7 31 Bd3 Ke8 32 Kf2 Rg8 33 Nf3 Kf7 34 c4 dxc4 35 Bxc4 Nd7 36 b3 Nb6 37 Bd3 Nd5 38 Bd2 Nb4 39 Be4 draw agreed